English

More recently in my research, I have focused on the systems that place Native Americans in prison and have been comparing them to the systems that placed them in the Carlisle Boarding schools from the mid nineteenth to the twentieth century. I have especially been examining the narratives of assimilation around the Carlisle Boarding schools, and the trauma that comes from this forced assimilation. Many parents supported their children being sent to the boarding schools for three reasons: 1) It would keep them safe and 2) They saw the (free) school as reparations from the US government for taking away their land and 3) They believed that assimilation was the key in succeeding in American society, and wanted their children to learn English.

voice of truth = freedom // “truth will set you free” = (oversimplification) of wideman...

• narrator wrote to “make a fiction of [his] life”; robby imprisoned but open about himself — more free?

calls to question: the subjectivity of truth

calls to question: how much voice/space needed to be free

• in cafe, not much space, abundant people from varied backgrounds and experience... subjective truths, limited space

but freedom also subjective…

• in cafe, many spoke of “ability” and “capacity” as only path to freedom, i tried to challenge notion…
• again, robby incarcerated, but by narrator’s perspective, somehow more free?

no simple answer

"The visitor is forced to become an inmate. Subjected to the same sorts of humiliation and depersonalization. Made to feel powerless, intimidated by the might of the state [. . .] We suffer the keepers' prying eyes, prying machines, prying hands. We let them lock us in without any guarantee the doors will open when we wish to leave. We are in fact their prisoners until they release us" (Wideman 52).

       In Monday night’s Socrates Café, we talked about our understandings of freedoms from different perspectives. People mentioned “the ability/capability of doing what you desire to do, with being mindful to others, or being constrained by some moral standards, or institutions”, “not hurting others when exercising your own freedom since that would negate other’s freedom”, “whether is freedom a choice”, “freedom as the not being oppressed”, “freedom exist in anarchy”, “freedom not solely limited within the realm of human spirit”, “being aware of context and audiences before performing or speaking”, “is there freedom with any anticipated consequences”, etc.

Brothers and Keepers. My thoughts spring back to my Jewish education. I remember learning in Jewish day school and in synagogue the story of Cain and Abel: Cain is jealous of his brother, Abel, and then murders him. Something about God preferring Abel’s meat offerings over Cain’s crops. Then God asks Cain where Abel is and Cain responds, “how should I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?”(Genesis 4:9). Of course God knows what Cain did, so, I wonder, why does God ask the question? God then “sentences” Cain to a life of wandering the earth—which to me as a child seemed like Cain got a pretty good deal. Looking back at the text, I notice that Cain, however, feels that his punishment is unbearable.

I have been doing a lot of thinking and talking about our time in the Socrates Café, trying to pick apart why I left the conversation so frustrated. During our time, I was aware of the special circumstances of our meeting, a worlds-collide kind of deal that doesn't get to happen every day. We were fortunate enough to have a disparity of opinions and experiences, but I found myself very antsy throughout the evening. I want to appreciate that philsophical discussion where we could talk without looking for an answer and diving deep into thought; but the thing is I don't feel like that is what happened. I just felt like we were talking in circles and not really looking at comments with a true depth.

Dear Mom,

I tried to write this letter in theory. Weaving together well-crafted strands of academic prose, I knew you would take from it what I wanted you to—the editor in you comes out in the most personal, un-academic situations. I got that from you, this appreciation and reverence for published text. When I wrote that email a couple months ago, telling you that I wanted surgery, I clouded my truths with celebrated theorists, as if backing up an argument with credible sources. You understood, to some extent—responding with the same language I had introduced.

“Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of  being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each.